Task 3-Part 6 Evaluation

59. If I would only save Antonio because he is loyal to his friends and is a very worthy friend and person to save. Although he will be in depression from his loss of his friends, but I am sure that he would be grateful and befriend me. He will be a very worthy friend and I would definitely treasure him.

60. I think that the title is not good. The story does not mainly talk about the merchant of Venice, Antonio. Instead, it talks about how Bassanio marries Portia and how Portia saves Antonio from Shylock's evil intentions.

62. I would choose Antonio as a friend because he is very loyal to his friends and would make a very worthy friend. He is willing to bet his life for Bassanio just to let him marry the woman he loves and he respects all his friends, regardless of closeness and social status.

Task 3-Part 5 Synthesis

48. Part One: A pound of flesh
  Bassanio wants to borrow money from Antonio to woo Portia, a rich heiress. However, Antonio does not have any money as his ships are still at sea. In the end, Antonio borrows money from Shylock, a Jew money-lender. They sign a bond saying that if Antonio does not return his money on time, he can get a pound of Antonio's flesh. Taking the money, Bassanio hurries to Belmont, the place where Portia's estates are.
Part Two: The life of a close friend at risk
  After the marriage between Bassanio and Portia, they receive horrible news that Antonio failed to return the money on time and is being put in jail. Bassanio hurries back to see the trail and hopefully to be able to save his friend.
Part Three: A women saves the day
  Portia decides to take matters to her own hands. She dressed up as a lawyer and goes into the court. In the court, she tried to speak of mercy and soften everyone's heart, except Shylock's. In the end, the clever Portia said that Shylock must take a pound of flesh from Antonio without trying to shred one drop of Antonio's blood. Taken aback, Shylock's evil plans backfired. Instead of taking Antonio's life, Shylock's properties was lost. Later, when Portia reveals here identity back at home, Antonio and Bassanio were pleased that Portia was the person who saved them.

50.  Hello readers! Do you like stories with happy endings and a good plot? Well, I have the perfect book for you. This book "Merchant of Venice" is written by the famous playwright in the Elizabethan era has written lots of good books, this book is not an exception! This book talks about a rich merchant in Venice who helps his friend to borrow money from a money-lender whom he is in bad terms with, Shylock. If you are interested in this book, please borrow it from this library. Enjoy reading it!

52.  Hello listeners! Looking for a book to read? Bored and don't know what to do? I have the perfect book for you! This book "Merchant of Venice", has a good plot and a very happy ending where the main characters are all saved from danger. Merchant of Venice is written by William Shakespeare, the famous playwright which almost everyone knows. Do borrow this book which is available every library and start reading now! Happy reading!

Task 3-Part 4 Analysis

38. Antonio has a lot of friends, however, he has very little close friends, whom he treasures more than other friends, like Bassanio. When Antonio's friends has problems he does not hesitates to help them and tries all means to help. However, Antonio does not share his own problems with friends and chooses to keep it to himself. Antonio is extremely loyal to Bassanio and is willing to sacrifice his life just for Bassanio's marriage. Antonio treats his friends problems as his own, going to great lengths and risks to solve it. I think that these traits of Antonio's are also similar to me.

39. The word to describe Antonio would be loyal. He is loyal to all his friends, even ones who are not that close as Bassanio. Antionio always tries to solve his friend's problems at all costs. Antonio never betrayed his friends or quarreled with them. Antonio sacrifices for his friends. Also, Antonio does not want to trouble his friends by telling them his problems.

40. The main idea of this book is to discriminate the Jews and to glorify the Christians. In the books Shylock, the evil character is portrayed as a Jew whereas the character with good traits like Antonio, Bassanio and Portia are Christians. In the end, Shylock was even forced to convert to Christian. This book is just simply trying to discriminate Jews as Jews in the Elizabethan era was looked down upon.

Task 3-Part 3 Application

25. If the main character, Antonio enters the classroom, he would definitely be unused to his surroundings as he is supposed to live in a very different era. He would have trouble communicating with others as the English during his era is different as compared to the English spoken now. Antonio would most likely try to learn and adapt to our modern day English. He would make very few friends, however, all his friends would be very loyal to him as he is to them as Antonio does know how to choose friends very well.

27. I have learnt from the story that people must stay loyal to their friends and always help them in their times of need. At the same time, we must also be careful about people whom are in bad terms with you.

32. If the story occurred 200 years ago, a lot of changes must be made. Firstly, if they want to keep the storyline, the words in the book must be replaced with pictures and some simple sentences written to let the readers know what is happening. The people during that time had very little or almost no education at all, therefore, pictures are needed for people to understand the plays.

Task 3-Part 2 Comprehension

11. The problem in this book is that Antonio did not return the money he owned to Shylock and must pay a pound of his flesh as stated in the bond. In other words, Shylock is planning to kill Antonio by letting him bleed to death after cutting the pound of flesh nearest to his heart. The problem is solved when Portia, dressed up as the lawyer managed to save Antonio from Shylock's cruel intentions.
16. Antonio borrowed money from Shylock and sealing the bond.
      Bassanio, taking the money, goes to woo Portia.
      Bassanio found out that Antonio was going to be killed by Shylock because he failed to returned the money on time.
      Portia disguised as a lawyer, wanting to save the life of Bassanio's closest friend, Antonio.
      Portia managed to save Antonio's life and Shylock has to convert to Christianity to save his own life.
20. The title, "Merchant of Venice", refers to the main character, Antonio, who is a merchant in Venice, Italy. The book talks about how the merchant who risked his life by offering a pound of his flesh in a bond if he does not return three thousand ducats on time to Shylock, a money-lender. The three thousand ducats is for his friend, Bassanio to woo the woman he loves. This books talks about how the merchant of Venice risks his life for his friend.

Task 3-Part 1 Knowledge

7. The story took place in Venice, Italy and Belmont, the place of Portia's estate.
8. There are other stories which Shakespeare has written, such as King Lear, The Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.
9. The story's timeline took place during the Elizabethan era at about 1597.

Activity 2-Global Warming

1. There are many solutions to global warming, however, they all revolve a similar idea of reducing energy consumption. Some solutions that you can see everyday would be to take public transport instead of driving your own car, walk or cycle if your destination is near, using the fan instead of the air-con. Also, use energy efficient products like refrigerators with 5 ticks and light bulbs which uses less energy.These actions may only reduce a small amount of electricity per person, but if everybody does it, the amount of energy it reduces in total would be a really large amount. People can also plants trees to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the air and reduce the amount of rubbish burnt. Scientist across the world are also looking for alternative power sources to replace the burning of fossil fuels. The government can replace the burning of fossil fuels in their countries with nuclear power plants if they are willing to take the risk.
2. Singaporeans can also help save the planet by joining in the different campaigns organized in Singapore and going green by using the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Reduce by using less electricity, turning off the lights when you don't need them, switch to power saving light bulbs and electronics. Reuse by reusing paper which is only written on one side to print personal documents. Recycle by throwing newspaper to the recycling bins. The actions might seem simple, but they are all vital to saving the Earth, if everyone were to work together, the Earth will definitely be saved.
3. In HCI, the best way to engage the students would be to organize quizzes and events to promote the awareness of global warming, the need to save the Earth and to promote good habits. The school can organize competitions between classes to see which class recycled the most amount of newspaper and which class did the best job in reusing materials to decorate their classroom. By competing with each other, not only can the class strengthen their bonds as their goals are the same, they can also learn how to effectively reuse materials for decoration.
Extension activity
Environmental studies should be made a mandatory part of the science curriculum. Do you agree?
        Environmental issues are a huge topic now and everyone is aware of global warming. However, the problem lies with the determination that the people have to save Mother Earth. Most people are still unaware about the importance of going green now and thinks that there is still time. This sort of thinking is very hard to change, therefore, we should let the people learn from young, the importance of saving the Earth and going green and the skills needed to help them. Also, we must teach them the consequences of global warming if they do not save the Earth now. When these are taught to them young, they will never forget it and they would apply the skills for the rest of their lives. The only way to make sure that every child is taught these is by using education. Therefore, I agree that environmental issues should be made a mandatory part of the science curriculum.
         Since education is compulsory for every child, we can make use of this as a platform to raise awareness of global warming and the importance of saving our Earth. Environmental studies should be included in our studies from young so that we would understand more about the Earth and how to save it. The students would grow up and become responsible people and are capable of saving the Earth by using as little electricity as they can. Also, we can nurture more people to become leaders who can identify the problems and come up with solutions and solve the problem of global warming.
         When they know about the consequences of global warming, they will be encouraged to try their best to save the Earth and at the same time might try to gather support to save the Earth together. When more and more people starts to go green, others would feel "left out" and also join them in going green. This way, more people are encouraged to save the Earth.
         In conclusion, I agree that environmental study should be made a mandatory part of science curriculum as it would let more students be aware of the current situation of the Earth and better understand global warming. By making it a mandatory part of science curriculum, the students gets a better understanding of the environment and at the same time, help to spread the message of caring for the environment. Therefore, I agree that environmental study should be made a mandatory part of science curriculum.

Activity 1-Women's Rights

1. I feel that it is unfair that women in Saudi Arabia are deprived of such rights. At the same time, I feel very sad for them as they are deprived to rights to do even small things like driving the car. It is totally ridiculous and I feel that women should be given equal rights as men. We are no longer living in the old society where men are in a higher social class than women and we are now living in democracy, where everyone has equal rights. This is just another case of prejudice. The men thinks that the women is very weak and cannot take care of themselves alone in the car as they are "afraid that women are exposed to strangers outside their homes by driving". Therefore, I feel that it is very unfair of the treatment of women's rights in Saudi Arabia.

2. I think that social media is an advantage to the women in Saudi Arabia. Since social media is viewable across the world and Saudi Arabia is the only country which gives women less rights, the women can garner support from other countries. Also, they can garner more support from people across the world to increase their strength and have a better chance of overthrowing the law. This can be seen by the statistics that Ms. Sharif has gathered more than 12,000 supporters from Facebook and Twitter from the campaigns.

3. I think that the best way to solve this problem is to satisfy the worries of both sides. If you give the women equal rights as men, it would cause a huge commotion as the religious beliefs disagrees with it. Therefore, since the religious beliefs are caused by the prejudice that women cannot take care of themselves outside their homes, then the women should prove themselves that they are capable of protecting themselves alone outside. The government should introduce classes that teaches the women how to protect themselves and the women who completed the class would be given a certificate to allow them to have equal rights as men.

Extension Activity
2.Women makes good leaders. Do you agree?
      I agree that women make good leaders. A good leader must have a clear sense of right and wrong, make the right decision at the right time. Also, they should be able to think calmly at the critical moment. Most importantly, they must be honest. If a leader lies to the public frequently, he or she would not get support from the public when the public discovers his or her lies and might get overthrown. The leader must have feelings for the public too. They cannot just sit back while the whole country suffers. Additionally, the leader must also know a lot about the world and customs of different religion, otherwise, he or she might offend other countries because of their ignorance.
       A recent survey shows that the public feels that women are far more suitable than men to be leaders. 50% of the public says that women are more honest than men while only 20% of the public says that men are more honest, the remaining 30% are unclear or says that both are equally honest. In terms of compassion, the public feels that women are far ahead of men. 80% of the public thinks that women are more compassionate while only 5% of the public thinks that men are more compassionate.
      Based on these statistics, it is obvious that the public thinks that women have the traits of a better leader. However, the current way of thinking does not allow women to be leaders. Many people have the thinking that women are much weaker than men and that it is dangerous for a women to hold a high-ranking position like a leader. As the position of the leader is usually held by men, people would feel uncomfortable having a change as they have never experienced what is it like and would not like to take the risk. Hopefully, a woman can stand up and change the way people think and let women have the opportunity to become leaders.

Reflection on Shakespeare's Research

  After this research, I learnt about the Elizabethan era and more about Shakespeare's life and writing style. My impression of Shakespeare and his works are that they are extremely difficult to understand and requires detailed studying to even understand one short paragraph of the play.
  There were many differences in the Elizabethan era when Shakespeare lived as compared to today. Firstly, the education is different. In the Elizabethan era, formal education was limited, there were elementary schools for young children. Grammar schools for older boys, but hardly anyone would have gone to them and universities where some boys have gone, but very few as compared to today. Grammar schools and universities were for boys only. Girls were hardly educated. Upper-class girls were sometimes educated at home by tutors and sometime brothers, otherwise mostly have been taught by their mothers and household tasks would have been their main focus of education. Unlike today, there was no universal syllabus of education. The emphasis in grammar schools and in universities was on the learning of Greek and Latin. Secondly, the medical care at that time was not as good as today. The only surgery available at that time was for the setting of broken bones. Most serious illness was incurable. Most medical care was actually done by housewives as most people lived in the countryside where there were no doctors. Thirdly, the penal system was very harsh. People could get hanged for small offenses like stealing a very small amount.
  Although Shakespeare is from another era, this plays can still be applied to modern day context, we still can learn moral values from his plays. For example, we can learn not to discriminate from the Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare's plays can always be applied to modern day context because shows the mistakes that people usually make. Since people are not god, they will always make mistakes and these mistakes are written in Shakespeare's plays.

Shakspeare powerpoint

Shakespeare